


i'm going to get back what it took from me. don't wait up

by Ashling



Category: Dublin Murders (TV)
Genre: Background Cassie Maddox/Sam O'Neill, Can't use other tags because don't wanna spoil, Complete, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22502758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: there can't be any explanation for it, this time
Relationships: Cassie Maddox/Rob Reilly
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	i'm going to get back what it took from me. don't wait up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plutonianshores](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutonianshores/gifts).



Cassie's hand is on her phone before she even fully registers where she is, or that she was asleep. Sam moves against her, his forehead pressing against her shoulder blade. 

"Rose again?" he murmurs, and she feels a quiet ripple of affection at that. His cases are hers, and hers are his, by now. She's got some frequent callers. Close to midnight on a Saturday is high time for drunkards to be coming home to their spouses. High time for those spouses to come crying back to her. And ever since Sam moved in, he knows their names nearly as well as she does.

 _Unidentified number,_ the screen blares into her bleary eyes.

"Yeah," she says, affection turning to guilt, easy as the flip of a coin. "Don't worry about it." 

The quickest escape is out the door onto the balcony, but the door's not thick enough, so she keeps her voice down. "What's up?"

"Is this Maddox?" 

She stays silent. That wasn't the voice she was expecting. 

"This is O'Halloran, Missing Persons? Sorry to bother you at night. I usually wouldn't, 'cause your man's not even been gone for long, but, ah, the landlady let herself into his place and found a weird note, phoned up the helpline. There were some, ah, notes on his file, and I can't make heads or tails of the note, thought I might ask you. It's a weird one."

"Rob?" Cassie says. Though it shouldn't be a question. It is, of course it is. She can feel it. "What's the note?"

"It's not so bad, it's just weird." 

_I don't think it's suicide,_ running underneath his words, trying to soothe her. Cassie hates it. "Read it to me."

He does.

"I'll get him," she says, and hangs up. 

Even after all these years, she could still drive to Knocknaree blindfolded.

There had been a couple of trees left, in the wide loop of a road merging off the new freeway. They were a concession to the activists, along with an informational plaque on the forest and ruins that had once stood there. They had been monument enough, those trees, themselves. Old, towering, powerful, unashamed of how strange they looked with the clean young new sweep of the freeway beside them. Now there are no trees left.

There are two stumps, pale in the moonlight where they were cut smooth across. Rob's slumped against the stump of the one, she can see that much from where she is. Cassiee takes a hard left, off the freeway, plowing into the long grass and stopping the car not far away. It is Rob. He's holding something big. His eyes are closed.

She's got a Maglite in her glove compartment. She gets it, gets out of the car, shines it at his face, calls his name.

He opens his eyes. The little girl he's carrying in his arms doesn't.

"Jesus Christ."

"No, 's only me." He grins. Something frightening in it; he means it. He's not at all confused or afraid, as if he thinks he is where he's supposed to be. And there's nothing tentative in his eyes as he looks at her; that's something he's not done in years. He's happy. 

That look on him sends an ache down deep into Cassie's bones, even as it unnerves her violently. "What the hell are you doing?" she snaps.

"I was going to get them back," he explains, "but it gave me her instead."

"Who is she?" 

He frowns, but only for a moment. Pats the little girl on the shoulder. She looks tiny, enveloped in his long dark coat. (Rob himself only has trousers and a grey button-up against the night air, but he doesn't seem to notice.) The girl's dark eyelashes are very long against her cheeks. She's four, maybe? Five? Curly hair rioting against Rob's shoulder. A peaceful look on her snub-nosed face.

"Who are you?" Rob says, as if he's genuinely curious, genuinely expecting an answer. The girl begins to stir.

Cassie ventures closer. She had worried, wildly, that this might be some kind of strange kidnap, but he's so gentle with her, it won't be that. (And how could Cassie think that of him, even for a wild moment?) And then her foot steps in something, and she swings her phone down from the two faces to the long grass. Something glistens red beneath. Her shoes squelch, stickily. She has to focus on breaths, long and deep, in and out, to keep her voice from shaking when she does speak.

"Rob."

"Mm?"

Cassie points. His socks are sodden with it, gone almost entirely a ruddy rust color. Shoes too. She swings the light up to Rob's face, to get his reaction. He seems perplexed by the blood, but only for a moment. The girl has opened her eyes.

The girl looks at Rob; he looks back.

His face lights up with pure, uncut discovery. It's like a stab, that look, and Cassie would know; it's like a stab and worse because she knows that look so well, had lived for it shining from his eyes and hers, the delight that made all the rest of the shit in life worth it just to share in that moment of realization with him. Memory isn't strong enough a word for it. He looks so, so happy, and for just a second, she forgets that everything around them from start to finish is wrong, that they are wrong, that no matter what he thinks he's discovered, there's no happy ending. And then he speaks.

"Cass," Rob says, nearly breathless with excitement. "I think she's yours."


End file.
